The sun was out for, oh, about two minutes the other morning, just long enough to get this photo before it clouded over again. Otherwise, I can't remember when we've seen the sun last. Outside my writing studio window, the day is gray, foggy, damp and chilly. The bare, black trees are receding into the misty woods, and next month’s daffodils and a few hardy daylilies are poking up through the soggy brown blanket of leaf mulch in the flower bed. A nice day for a fire.
No news yet on Zach’s tests, so I am occupying myself with the necessary business of book promotion chores--brazen hussy work, we call it around here. When I first starting writing professionally, I wrote mass market books for young adults—no promotion required. The manuscripts went to New York, the acceptance checks came back, and that was the end of it.
But when I moved into mystery writing in the early 1990s, I discovered a whole new world, where the author is expected (required is probably a better word) to push the book: going on book tours (author-funded or publisher-funded); talking to libraries, book clubs, garden groups, hockey teams, riot squads, whoever is patient enough to sit and listen; hosting a website or two or three; sending out eletters; blogging and arranging blog tours (making virtual appearances on a dozen or so host blogs); and showing up, scrubbed and smiling and wearing my best bib and tucker, at mystery conferences and conventions.
In my former incarnation as a university professor, I learned to like standing up in front of an audience, so talking to readers is a treat for me, actually. And I don’t dislike managing websites or blogging or going to conferences, either. I’ve learned to accept book promotion as a necessary part of the writing business—and yes, oh, yes, it is a business.
But it all takes time. Not just the time spend doing it, but the time I spend arranging to do it. Yesterday morning, it took a couple of hours to email the twenty or so people and groups who have invited me to do this, that, or the other thing during April, the publication month for the next China Bayles mystery (Nightshade). I listed all the events and emailed the whole kit and caboodle to Peggy (She Without Whom Nothing Gets Done). When she posted the page to the website, I proofed everything, then emailed it to Catherine, my publisher’s publicist, who responded (five minutes later, such is the blistering speed of the Internet) with an offer to mail out a box of giveaway copies of Nightshade during the April blog tour (yes, there will be one of those, too) and to remind me that I also need to update my Amazon and MySpace pages.
Good grief. Amazon has been on my conscience--my last post was back in October and I know I need to do a better job with that. But I’d forgotten all about MySpace, which doesn't seem like "my space" at all. When I go there, I feel like I'm dropping in on a noisy frat party where everybody else is enjoying the happiest of happy hours and I haven't had my first G&T. But I’m delighted to hear that Catherine will have books to give away (you will be pleased, too, I hope). My next chore is setting up the blog tour, which will likely take the better part of three or four days. If you're interested in participating, email me at china @ tstar dot net and I'll reply with details.
And hey, I can't complain. Bill deals with the bewildering clutter of contracts and royalty statements (he is a DIY kind of guy), does at least half of the grocery shopping, manages the flow of life here at Meadow Knoll, and helps with the dogs, who lately seem to be spending days on end at the vet’s. Which leaves me time to write books. And sell them, since that’s what’s required. It’s all part of the job.
Reading note. There are hours and hours of a writer's time that aren't worth the paper he [or she] is not writing anything on.--E. B. White
